Witnesses disagree on whether gate to Newark schoolyard should have been closed

On Aug. 4, 2007, four young college-age friends were shot, three of them fatally, behind the Mount Vernon Elementary School in Newark. Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK— Opinions differ over whose job it was to secure the gate to Mount Vernon School in 2007, and with no written policy, the only thing the jury could be sure of today is that there was confusion.

William Freeman, Director of Security for Newark Public Schools, testified in the schoolyard civil trial that there was no duty for his roving patrol guards to secure the unlocked gate at Mount Vernon School. Each school's principal, he said, determined whether to lock the gates. Some communities liked having access to the yards, others wanted it secured.

But the Mount Vernon school principal and a custodian previously testified the policy was to lock the gate each night and that both the custodial staff and security patrols were responsible for closing the gates.

"There should be a nice coordinated effort ... one hand should know what the other hand is doing, correct?" plaintiffs' attorney Michael Marone said on cross examination. "So we can accomplish the goal of, for example, making sure a gate is locked and closed."

The civil trial against the state-run school district alleges that the yard, marked with graffiti, broken security cameras and lights, and an open, unlocked gate, allowed the triple murder of three college-aged friends to occur Aug. 4, 2007.

The case rests on whether the schoolyard was in a dangerous condition, whether the district knew it to be, and if so, whether officials acted to fix it. The plaintiffs must show the friends attacked that night were not being negligent themselves in going to hang out in the yard, which they arrived a little before midnight.

Freeman said on the stand today that Mount Vernon School ranks low on the list of "challenging" schools, or schools prone to crime. "Mount Vernon School has been extremely local, very quiet with rarely any incidents," Freeman said. Furthermore, a truce between the Bloods and the Crips gangs May 21, 2004, made schools neutral ground Freeman said.

In a lengthy cross-examination, Marone cited a number of crimes that had occurred at the school from 2000 to 2006 in an attempt to show the yard was a harbor for crime.

"From a security perspective you can have teachers robbed at gunpoint, deadly weapons found on the premise, guns waved at security guards, assault, battery, arson, playground equipment set on fire," Marone said, citing crime incidents.

"Over the period of many years, that would be somewhat normal, perhaps," Freeman said.

Leonard Leicht, defense attorney for the state asked Freeman about his opinion on the safety of the four young adults arriving at the schoolyard after dark where two strangers sat on the bleachers drinking beer.

"I would say it would be a little scary," Freeman said.

"Would you advise against it?," Leicht asked.

Freeman replied that he would.

Manuel Quinones, chief security officer who was in charge of the district's security cameras, testified the cameras at Mount Vernon were installed in 2002. He said no one told him two of the cameras at the yard were broken and hanging by their wires despite a policy requiring guards to report any problems.

"As far as I knew, the machines were working fine," Quinones said.

Even if the cameras had been working, defense attorney Leonard Leicht said they would not have captured the attacks because of their position in the yard and real-time recording capabilities.

"So we just spent the entire afternoon arguing about cameras that don't even matter?" Leicht said.

The trial will continue in its fifth week Monday in Judge Paul Vichness' courtroom.